Howard dumps Duncan Smith's internet pollster

Michael Howard is distancing himself from an important legacy of Iain Duncan Smith by refusing to renew the Tories' contract with a polling organisation criticised for providing rosy results.

YouGov, dubbed by cynics "Anything You Want Gov", will no longer be the party's sole pollsters, as part of a review ordered by Will Harris, the Tories' new chief of marketing.

The decision was welcomed by senior party figures, dismayed by YouGov's positive results, used by Mr Duncan Smith to show his success.

The low point came in the run-up to last year's conference when he told anxious donors that his speech would give him a 5 point bounce in the polls - the exact figure in YouGov's first post-conference survey.

Conservative Central Office last night held out the prospect that YouGov would continue to do ad hoc polls for the party. A spokesman said: "We used to have a single contract with YouGov, but in future may consider using more than one company."

Stephan Shakespeare, the founder of YouGov, appeared to hold out little prospect that he would still get work from the party. Asked whether he would do any more, he said: "I really do not know."

It is expected that the Tories will reinstate ICM as their main polling organisation. ICM, which carries out polls for the Guardian, is widely respected because it takes account of the "Tory-shy factor" among voters who are embarrassed to say they support the Conservatives.

Last night Mr Shakespeare put a brave face on the Tory decision, pointing out that YouGov has 56 clients, including the Department of Health, the Daily Telegraph and the global accountancy firm KPMG.

Senior Tory frontbenchers blamed YouGov for lumbering the party with policies intended to appeal to key voters but dismissed by the MPs as opportunistic, including opposition to top-up fees, abolishing fishing licences and raising the speed limit.

YouGov has also come in for criticisms because it polls over the internet -other polling organisations say that the best results come from interviewing face-to-face or over the phone. Mr Shakespeare insisted that YouGov was Britain's most accurate pollster, pointing out that he predicted accurately that the Tories would get 33% of the vote in the 2001 general election.